For unaccompanied double mixed choir. Written for Garrett O'Brien and the Exultate Singers. Words by Sir Thomas Browne.Dr Francis Jackson CBE is a British organist and composer. He was born in Malton Yorkshire and received his early education as a Chorister at York Minster under his precursor the legendary Sir Edward Bairstow. Jackson succeeded Bairstow as Organist of York Minster in 1946 a post he held until his official retirement in 1982. His extensive output of sacred and secular music includes canticles anthems hymn tunes organ pieces two acclaimed monodramas an overture a concerto a symphony and solo songs. Jackson's creative output has continuedsince his retirement.

Par REBILLARD JEAN-JACQUES / HAMMJE THOMAS. Méthode 128 pages avec CD play-backs Par JJ Rébillard

At First Light was commissioned by Eric Bruskin a resident of Philadelphia USA in memory of his mother. Eric had a longstanding enthusiasm for my work and I was touched to be the person he approached for a task which is both a privilege and a daunting responsibility. In a sense no music can ever measure up to the weight of love or the hope of consolation vested in it under such circumstances – but in memory I carry the deaths of both my own parents and I was able to draw upon that. Eric’s fondness for my Cello Sonata (itself written in memoriam) led him to ask that I include a solo ‘cello part in the new work – but his attachment also to my polyphonic sacred choral writing meant that he wanted a centrepiece which would be both a showcase of that approach and the celebration of a life well lived. Therefore the seven movements of At First Light arrange themselves as a series of slow meditations surrounding an exuberant 9-minute motet in which the lamenting cello falls temporarily silent. Eric’s Jewish faith meant that approaching an agnostic humanist brought up within the Anglican tradition was hardly free of problems! Gradually though I was able to win his approval for a collated mosaic of texts. This embraces some liturgical Latin (necessary for the motet) as the shared preserve of broad western culture in general but balances it with a secular approach to loss celebration remembrance and the many shades of our mourning those whom we see no longer. Eric was adamant that he did not want the title Requiem; but what has emerged is still a form of semi-secular Requiem in all but name taking its title instead from a phrase in the poem by Thomas Blackburn set as the third movement. This seemed to suggest succinctly how the loss of one very close to us is an awakening into an unfamiliar world where everything is changed. Following the exuberant central movement the texts by the Lebanese-born Kahlil Gibran and the US Kentuckian poet Wendell Berry first address the departed loved one directly then place us within an imaginary funeral cortège where the perennial and universal in human experience become personal without subscribing explicitly to any particular faith (or lack of it). The final text of all is a translation of a Hebraic prayer requested and provided by Eric Bruskin which serves to mirror its Latin counterpart heard at the outset. Throughout the lamenting cello represents a commentary on the experience articulated in the text. It evokes and in a sense tries to embrace and sanctify the individual existential journeys of the bereft as they in turn seek to make their own sense of what the short-lived Second World War poet Alun Lewis called ‘the unbearable beauty of the dead’ (movement 5). In a modern world hostage to ever greater menace displacement bloodshed and anguish I hope fervently that this music not only brings a measure of solace to the person who commissioned it but also makes its own small contribu

Description English Songs Renaissance To Baroque - High Voice Thirty-four songs from 17 composers, complete with historical information. Songlist As I Walked Forth One Summer Day [Johnson, Robert] Blow, Blow, Thou Winter Wind [Arne, Thomas] Come And Trip It (G.F.Handel) Diaphenia (Francis Pilkington) Fain Would I Change That Note (Tobias Hume) Fair, If You Expect Admiring (Thomas Campian) Flow My Tears [Dowland, John] Hark! The Echoing Air [Purcell, Henry] Have You Seen But A White Lily Grow? Henry Lawes (How Happy Art Thou) Here Amid The Shady Woods (G.F.Handel) I Attempt From Love's Sickness To Fly [Purcell, Henry] If Music Be The Food Of Love [Purcell, Henry] I'll Sail Upon The Dog Star (Henry Purcell) In Sherwood Livde Stout Robin Hood [Jones, Robert] It Was A Lover And His Lass [Morley, Thomas] Jack And Joan (Thomas Campian) Let Me Wander Not Unseen (G.F.Handel) My Lovely Celia (George Munro) My Lovely Celia [Munro, George] Nymphs And Shepherds [Purcell, Henry] O Come, O Come, My Dearest [Arne, Thomas] Pastime With Good Company Rest Sweet Nymphs [Pilkington, Francis] Since First I Saw Your Face (Thomas Ford) Tell Me No More (John Blow) The Silver Swan [Gibbons, Orlando] Thou Soft Flowing Avon (Arne) Weep You No More, Sad Fountains [Dowland, John] What If I Never Speed [Dowland, John] When Daisies Pied [Arne, Thomas] When Laura Smiles (A Book Of Ayres) [Rosseter, Philip] Where E'er You Walk [Handel, George Frideric] Willow Song Wind, Tell My Sweetheart